* Due to the current state of economy, the Condo News is published every other week until further notice. 

Class of 2013 Attire: A Barrel

What will current college freshman (class of 2013) wear? If the recession and business losses continue, quite possibly a barrel held up by suspenders.

According to a recent survey of 297 campuses, this year’s freshmen saw dollar signs in every facet of college choice, career goals and life on campus. Concern for the financial side of a college education was the highest it has been since the Nixon Administration.

Those of us who remember the role of higher education in America before World War II should not be shocked by the survey numbers. In the 1920s college students appeared to be less interested in quantum physics than in football games that they attended wearing raccoon coats and packing flat flacons of bootleg liquor and waving banners touting their college team.

Of course a few "have-nots" managed to earn a degree without a raccoon coat or even a decent roof over their heads. The teenage Ronald Reagan arrived at his college with no money and presented himself to the school’s president, who was impressed by the tall, strapping youth. He arranged for Reagan to sleep in a college out-building and work to pay for his tuition and other expenses.

My impression of the 1930s was of the subway commuters in New York City who were privileged to attend City College or Hunter College with tuition free. Since I lived in the New Jersey boondocks (as my New York relatives called the area), those schools were not available to me.

My route to college was unlike Ronald Reagan’s. I took the statewide exam for high school graduates and did well. This gave me tuition at a state school ($200 for a college year). For room and board, I lived with a family as a babysitter and dishwasher. There was also some salary: one dollar a week for a bus pass.

Reagan and I date from the days of a rough road to college for un-rich kids. Before the GI Bill, before federal grants and many other scholarships – and before college loans that are easy to accept but hell to pay back.

How about some federal aid for repayment of college loans – similar to mortgages?

Politically Correct White House Dining

The White House state dinner for the Prime Minister of India and his wife was a first for the Obama presidency.

It was also remarkable for its size (320 guests), which necessitated that it be held on the White House lawn in a tent.

The menu, which encompassed varied religious, ethnic, political, gastronomic and environmental restrictions and celebrations, can be studied like an ancient parchment.

First, the guests of honor are religious vegetarians. So, although the dinner was meatless, it did include a dish derived from animals: prawns. Prawns are similar to shrimp; both are shellfish.

The Hindu religion forbids the eating of animals. Are shellfish not animals? This religious "definition" reminds me of definitions of foods in the Jewish religion. The eating of shellfish is forbidden in strict Judaism, but fish with fins are permitted.

Another nod to tradition in Jewish food rules is honey. The land of "milk and honey" had few available sweeteners in Biblical times and the science of food chemistry was, of course, unknown. So, assuming that honey was only "housed" by the bees who brought it to the hive from their source in blossoms, the Ancients assumed they were of plant origin.

As a nod to the current rage for kitchen gardens and local farmers’ markets, there was White House arugula and honey at the state dinner. The culinary heritage of the hosts was indicated by chick peas, okra and collard greens.

So, considering the complexity of selecting the foods, the Obama White House cannot be criticized for a few minor slips. While the hosts were concentrating on the religious, bipartisan, diversity and health restrictions of the menu, they can be forgiven for a security boo-boo: allowing a couple of party-crashers in.

Archie Bunker vs 'Sex and the City'

When I heard that Archie Bunker’s armchair had been given the honor of placement in the Smithsonian Institution, my eyes were opened to the importance of popular culture.

Here was Archie, who worked on a loading platform and personified American blue-collar workmen in the television sit-com "All in the Family" raised to historic stature. His chair, which he wouldn’t let anyone else sit on, became a revered icon, because that is what it symbolized to him.

However, appropriate as it was to consecrate Archie’s chair to signify Archie’s status as king of his castle, choosing Carrie Bradshaw’s laptop computer for the Smithsonian seems to me less suitable.

The impression I take away from "Sex and the City" is that of recreational sex in a glittering city, namely New York City’s suave reaches of Manhattan where no one needs to look at price tags or the right side of a menu.

The Smithsonian curator who selected Carrie’s laptop for the museum says, "The laptop is an iconic prop symbolizing Carrie as a chronicler of contemporary society." He justifies Carrie’s historic role by adding, "She represents the latest stage in the progression from Lucy Ricardo and Mary Tyler Moore — and more broadly, the evolution of the role of women in America."

Archie’s chair, dark and threadbare, seems at home in a museum of history. It bears the patina of dust and long use, comfortable in the same repository with the desk on which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln’s top hat.

And to represent "Sex and the City," I nominate a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes.

Big Feet No Longer a Problem

My Mirror Image

I finally found my mirror image. Not merely discovering that right has become left and vice versa, but a creature that is the exact opposite of me in every way.

He is a male named Ilya and he is very fat. Being a manatee, that is his nature. Being a 20th Century female, it is my nature to follow the Duchess of Windsor’s philosophy: "You can never be too rich or too thin."

I always enjoyed being a snowbird, flying away from the New Jersey winters to Florida. Ilya usually swims to Massachusetts to escape the Florida summers.

The summer of 2009, with its wacky cold and rainy weather up north, sent Ilya off his usual course. He never made it to Cape Cod, but only got a little further than New Jersey’s Cape May. His vacation trip landed him in late October shivering in the frigid (to a manatee) 53 degrees creek between New Jersey and Staten Island.

He was huddling near an outfall pipe at a refinery to stay warm.

This was a medical emergency. Lucky Ilya. He was hoisted out by 30 rescuers and flown in a cargo plane back to his old hometown, Miami.

If I ever meet my mirror image, Ilya, I’ll not be afraid to come close. Manatees are vegetarians and very gentle and sometimes called "sea cows." Can’t you just picture a fat mother manatee suckling a plump manatee baby?

Fine Dining in a Nanny State

The nanny state.

How do you know when you are living in a nanny state? What are its ingredients? Nobody agrees on a definition, but a nanny state forces everybody to be good — by law or persuasion.

Being "good" is sometimes for the good of the individual, sometimes for the good of the whole society — and often for both.

Take the New York City rule that requires restaurants to print the number of calories in an item on the menu. The aim is to prevent obesity in the individual, but a secondary "good" is the decrease in a disease like diabetes, which busts the government’s budget for medical care.

Other "goods" of a nanny state work from a societal good back to the individual. Government standards for vehicle mileage-per-gallon initially promote energy independence, but a secondary goal is decreased pollution — cleaner air and less global warming.

The newest good, of the persuasion variety for the moment, is being developed in Sweden. Scientists there say "changing one’s diet can be as effective in reducing emissions of climate-changing gases as changing the car one drives or doing away with the clothes dryer."

Swedish scientists have developed a way to count the greenhouse gas emissions of every food on your plate. Included in the count are the food and excretions of animals and the transportation of foodstuffs. (The count of a New Zealand apple is 4; a home-grown apple is only 1.)

The report on the New York City calorie count shows that residents of the Big Apple would still choose the New Zealand apple. At McDonald’s they have not yet shifted from hamburgers to chicken salad.

Can you foresee a future where "bad" food diners will be scorned like smokers are today? Diners at one table ordering chicken (count of 10) look askance, scowl and whisper about the baddies eating beef (count of 120) nearby.

Vegetarians of the world, unite and cheer — your time has come.

Survivalists — Then and Now

We Florida retirees are living, in a sense, under a bell jar — protected from the abyss of unemployment and economic insecurity that our younger countrymen have been tossed into.

Not every single one of us are so sheltered, of course. But Social Security checks faithfully arrive every month, rain or shine, boom times or bust times. Many of us also have pensions or savings or both.

The tidings of Main Street America that we get from the media or from visits to us or by us are ominous indeed. The citizens that are not yet unemployed breathe the air of job loss at their workplace. And everyone seems to have a relative or friend or neighbor needing a job.

So much fear and anxiety cause, among other pathologies, a "survival" mentality — how to get through the horrible, awful, dreadful times to come, when the bills for our American Way of Life come due.

The previous "survival mentality" I can remember was in the 1950s — fear of an atomic bomb lobbed on us by the Soviet Union.

The survival methods used in the 1950s were fortified and sometimes hidden — an underground space dug in one’s yard or a safe room. They were equipped with cots and battery radios, and enough food and water in large containers to last until the environment was decontaminated and safe for human habitation.

The survival plans in this new century of different dangers are not fortified. The survivalists, from the ads I hear on the radio, seem to foresee being above ground, but on the run.

They see a breakdown of government (money becomes worthless) so they buy gold. Gold has been coin of the realm since antiquity, they reason. Also, they look ahead and see the food chain no longer functional. They plan ahead and buy a "Survival Seed Pack." But what will they eat while the beans and corn are growing?

The most convenient product I’ve heard advertised is one you can buy at FoodInsurance.com. It is in the form of a back pack that you can grab as you flee whatever or whoever you are escaping. Two weeks subsistence. Two objects included: waterproof matches and freeze-dried lasagna that will "keep for seven to ten years."

All of these possible futures we know from stories and movies. If you are a survivalist, take your pick.

My Two Ted Kennedys

The tsunami of praise that flooded the media when the "Lion of the Senate" died last summer caught me by surprise. I guess my view of Ted Kennedy was set in stone in 1969 after the Chappaquiddick incident.

At Chappaquiddick the young senator — the last of the legendary Kennedy brothers – was drunk when he drove his car off a bridge into seven feet of water. He escaped. His passenger, 29-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not.

In 1969 the Democratic king makers harbored the vision that Ted could run for president in 1972. He was seen as their last hope of uniting the two wings of the party. The Old Left, with its focus on the Cold War, union activism and other economic issues; and the New Left with its focus on the anti-Vietnam War movement and the values of the counterculture. The Chappaquiddick incident ultimately destroyed those dreams.

So in 2009 I had the problem of reconciling the two Ted Kennedys. The Old Ted Kennedy (alcoholic, womanizer, political lightweight) and the New Ted Kennedy (genius as a legislator, looked-up-to by other senators, keeper of the dream of universal health care.)

I sought a cure for my ambivalence at the library. Among the new biographies I spotted "Ted Kennedy; the dream that never died," by Edward Klein. Klein does not paper over or ignore the bad-boy years of Ted’s life. He explains what really happened at Chappaquiddick. (Mary Jo did not drown. She suffocated while gasping for breath inside the car, and lived for several hours.)

The lies that Kennedy and his aides and nine lawyers fabricated in an attempt to cover up his culpability were astonishing not only in their number but fantastic even by standards of lying politicians.

Is it any wonder that we maintain that all politicians lie? We could do a riff on the old joke about teenagers: Q. How can you tell when a politician is lying? A. When his lips are moving.

$2.5 Million for Madoff? 

Ruth Can Get By

Dear Ruth,

I won’t start by saying I’m sorry or other consolation.

What I can do for you is counsel you on how to live on a modest income and possibly a small Social Security monthly stipend. A Wall Street Journal article about your future life-style tells you how to invest the $2.5 million you will have after the Madoff empire is dismantled.

The Journal advises you to leave Manhattan where a modest two-bedroom apartment costs about $3,500 a month. It says it would be prudent after you have lost your $7.5 million mansion to find accommodations inland, say Homestead, Florida.

As an experienced Florida retiree, I’d say that Homestead is not the place for you. West Palm Beach’s Century Village is. Here you can buy or rent a light and airy two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath apartment for about $5,000 or so a year.

A few miles inland the weather is just as glorious, the flowers a burst of rainbow colors (we also have frequent rainbows) and the birds can be dramatic — like a flight of white ibis flying past your window — or homey — like nesting mockingbirds in the sea-grape tree outside another window.

From photos, Ruth, I admire your meticulously coiffed blonde hairdo. I too attempt that "look." Although inland-Florida hair stylists charge less than Manhattan’s or Palm Beach’s, I do find that the monthly "do" blows a hole in the household budget. It’s one of the tough decisions that we retirees make. Prioritize.

As the Journal points out, you will not need your $36,000 Russian sable coat in Florida. And unless it is a priority you can get by without a car in Century Village. There is free bus transportation to stores and medical appointments.

Since your husband isn’t around, your social life may resemble the single woman’s, widow’s, divorcee’s who find Florida’s casual life-style to their taste. There are card games (no cancellations because of ice or snow), also organizations to suit every niche or preference. If working out or sports are your passion — this is a healthy life-style paradise.

So, Ruth, you might want to resume using your maiden name before you join us, and shop for cheap phone cards to call Bernie with, but come on down and read all about those Palm Beach swells and their charity balls in the newspaper.

Sincerely, Rebecca

Youthquake in New York

On a recent New York visit I experienced a three-hour youthquake. No, the earth didn’t move for 180 minutes, but I felt tectonic shifts within my own head.

A half-dozen teenagers and twenty-somethings brought me up-to-date on the doings and sayings of the under-thirty set. They were cousins who don’t see each other very often and were bringing each other up-to-date on their latest doings and apps.

Apps, as in applications, are the technological abilities of their gadgets — mainly cell phones and cameras, which are always in their possession and that they hand around like my Florida neighbors do pictures of their grandchildren.

After the apps competition, the cousins compared the plots and actors in their favorite television sitcoms. The two teenage sisters giggled and blushed and even snuggled a face into the other’s shoulder as they declared their mock "love" for a certain actor.

The giggling has been old-fashioned since youngsters have been allowed to be seen and heard in the presence of their elders. What surprised me was the cultural longevity of 1960’s lingo. "Like" and "ya know" were flying through the air as often as their gadgets.

I was reminded of the fracas a few months ago when Caroline Kennedy (JFK’s daughter) announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton when the latter became Secretary of State.

It seems that one of the minor (or major) reasons her race was scuttled was this: She used the expression "ya know" so often that reporters counted them and published the exceedingly large numbers in newspapers.

And Caroline is over 30 — and could even be labeled middle-aged!

Perhaps we could have a national contest to find a 21st Century replacement for that over-used pause-filler.

A Convict is Flourishing Again

As color choices have been explained and color schemes suggested in my last commentary, the next question is, "What is your Condo style now or you wish it could be?"

Perhaps you have the finances and time before the holidays to form some mental picture of a room you would love, but this might seem more difficult than even choosing a new color scheme. It’s easy to say, "Find the style that suits you best and find most comfortable,’’ but creating that in your condo is a far more difficult task. Keep in mind, just as in choosing colors, there are certain suggested rules to follow. Some people search for an indefinable thing which they cannot describe with words, but will know when they see it. This may take a lot of leg work, but there is nothing wrong in purchasing things which give you pleasure to have around. The judgement call is whether it is the right size and scale for your room. This requires accurate measurements and even a simple floor plan to make a purchase with more certainty. I always find it a bit strange if I am in a decorating or furniture store, and I overhear a sales person ask, "how long is the wall" or "how high are your ceilings" so they can offer more help regarding a piece of furniture or artwork being considered. The customer may either have no answer or the "probably about" words in response. Unfortunately if something ends up being incorrect, a little more time for measurements might have prevented a mistake.

Many new condos already have a built in style especially with granite and more contemporary fixtures and lighting in place. This can take more skill and experience to incorporate the existing elements with another decorating style. A condo with a wall of windows and wonderful view is usually best with simple natural colors and furniture when decorating .

If your condo is boxy or without any architectural features you need to add your own touches of character. Be daring and hang a rug, a piece of tapestry or a large decorative screen you might already have. Though wallpaper has fallen out of favor for a while, there is a great deal of instant style that it can accomplish. Even a novice can be successful with papering an accent wall to start. Often just looking through sample books can inspire a new direction.

If you find you prefer a monochromatic room, varying textures can enliven the effect and overcome a possibly boring room as a result. The thicker the texture the softer a color appears. Glossy wall surfaces are brighter and a color seems softer in carpeting. Consider using a range of textures particularly if you have selected a white pallet. I have seen many beautiful rooms dressed only in white but multiple textures created all the interest in the room.

Rough tile or wood floors are easiest combined with strong textures such as linen, cotton and irregular weaves in fabric and marble floors usually need silk, velvets and soft fabrics to work together. Overstuffed furniture seems more inviting and comfortable but the simple lines of modern furniture need not seem harsh if covered in a soft fabric. The hard lines of tile and granite in a bathroom play beautifully with soft color fluffy towels. Berber carpeting and Oriental rugs create texture of their own. Even the selection of plants whether silk or real can offer texture from the leaves and plant containers.

A textured throw on a sofa or bed is often simply the star of the room.

Decorators throughout history have combined textures and many patterns together and the results can be seen in fine homes and museums. With a little bit of time and help from your own personal decorating wizard, your condo can become all that you dream of. Just promise yourself to get started!

Essays by Stanley Shotz

How did depression kids manage to get along during those "good old days?" Few are around today to tell of some of their experiences of 75 years ago. They were the years from about 1930 and into 1940 that brought changes into almost every home in our town. For most people, there was the need to move into different homes and acquire different life-styles from what we had become accustomed to as youngsters. I, for one, moved with my mother and older brother to a small apartment from a 3 bedroom house. My little sister moved in with our grandmother a few blocks away.

During the afternoon, I delivered a paper route six days a week. The evenings were taken up with homework, and it was Friday nights and Saturdays that gave me the freedom to hang out with the guys.

Our "hangout headquarters" was in front of the corner candy store just next door from our place. If you were lucky, you could earn a few nickels by going to someone’s home nearby when they were called to answer a call on the public phone in the store. They had to give you a tip or they wouldn’t be called in the future if they were stingy and left you empty handed. It could rain, sleet and snow, but we were there to make small talk and resolve all the problems facing the world. The owner of the store was always hoping that we would come in and spend a few cents. For that reason, we were seldom chased away, and then too, the person called to the phone might buy some small item while in the store, to show their appreciation for getting called.

Saturday night was something special for us poor kids on the corner, for we would be huddled in the cold weather, stomping our feet, but too lonely to just go home. This was before the days of TV. At the next corner was a missionary store. It was just a regular 2 story house with store front windows that were covered with curtains. The family lived in the back of the house and on the second floor. The first floor area had rows of wooden folding chairs arranged with a center aisle.

As I recall, there was seating for about 30 people. At the furthest end of the store was an elevated platform and rostrum. In the rear of the place was a kitchen with stove and sink. Hanging on the wall behind the platform was a wooden cross and a large picture of Jesus.

About 8 PM on Saturday night, some of the poor in the neighborhood drifted in along with the bunch of fellows that I was hanging out with on the next corner. We all sat and got warm during the one hour sermon. It was a relief to get into a place that was heated and provided a bathroom and refreshments. Finally, prayer and eventually the singing portion for the service ended. On a table at the side of the podium was a large table and on it a plate with donuts piled on it. All through the service I stared at the donuts for they represented the only delicacy that I would have all week. The smell of hot coffee began to permeate the room and we became restless as the hour seemed to drag on and on.

Finally, the preacher’s wife would enter the room carrying a large pot of hot coffee. It seemed like forever that we finally came to the closing prayer. The minister talked on and on, while we sat and stared at the donuts on the table. We finally were able to rush to the table in the room and we all reached out to grab the day-old donuts that was the reward for our listening to the Gospel. The minister each week was able to get those stale donuts from the local bakery at little or no cost. The fact that they were a little harder than fresh and all the same type did not lessen their appeal to us kids and adults alike.

The coffee was strong, no milk and no sugar was served, but that donut was a gift from heaven for those of us that had the patience to wait. It made no difference to many of us who were of different religions. The donut and warmth of the room were ample compensation for the hour of listening. I returned week after week, for the donut.

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